Volunteering to make a Difference

Members of Maidenhead Bridge Rotary Club were out in force last weekend, giving up their time and talents to volunteer at a number of events in our great town as part of National Volunteers’ Week.
 
Volunteers’ Week is an annual celebration of the fantastic contribution millions of volunteers make across the UK – and it’s taking place from the 1-12 June 2016.
 
The first event for the community-focussed Maidenhead Bridge Rotary Club was helping with was the monthly Alley Group clean-up.  Members Nisha Chettri, Sushi Gow and Lisa Hunter spent a couple of hours working with the team to clean up the alley off Bailey’s Close, north of Kidwells Park.  The merry team picked up litter and scrubbed out graffiti, just one of the ways the group are doing their best to improve our town.
 
The second event, which was organised solely by the club, was a diabetes awareness day and free blood sugar checks, with the help of The Silver Star Diabetes Team and Diabetes UK.  The team worked hard all day on the High Street, offering advice on how to avoid contracting diabetes, which is an increasing healthcare concern.  Of over 90 people who were tested 20 were advised to keep an eye on their food intake and ask their GP for a more detailed diabetes test as soon as possible.
 
The third and final volunteering event took place at Holyport Fair, this year celebrating its 70th year!  Members spent a very busy 4 hours managing the bouncy castle, a simple job some people might think….but it proved to be so popular the team had to improvise and come up with a suitable queue management system to ensure everyone got their 5 minutes of bouncing fun!  Of course this was not a problem for Rotarians, who are very experienced volunteers!
 
Adam Hunter, Club President, commented “it proved to be a very busy weekend but one that was also a lot of fun.  Volunteers do so much good in our town, and throughout the country, often without recognition.  So I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all 45 members of Maidenhead Bridge Rotary Club, for continually giving up their time to help at numerous events throughout the year, you are all an inspiration and I am very proud to be your Club President”.
 
Maidenhead Bridge Rotary Club members have donated over 1,450 hours of their time over the course of the last 11 months helping each week at FoodShare Maidenhead, more recently at Calaid, at their Easter Family Fun Day, Reindeer Racing, Health Awareness Day and numerous other events.